Republican lawmakers in the Texas state Senate have advanced a bill that would allow the state Secretary of State to overturn election results specifically in Harris County, a Democratic Party stronghold and the most populous county in the state.
Under the terms of the bill, the Texas secretary of state — a position that has been held by Republicans for decades in the state — would have the ability to overturn the results of elections in the county if voting difficulties occurred. For instance, if a voting location ran out of ballots and delayed voting by more than an hour, the election results could be tossed out under the GOP proposal.
The bill doesn’t mention Harris County by name. Rather, the bill states that its provisions affect counties with populations greater than 2.7 million residents.
Just one jurisdiction meets that threshold in Texas: Harris County, which, as home to Houston, the fourth-largest city in the country, has a population of over 4.7 million people.
Only 2 percent of voting locations would need to experience problems in order to discount the results in the entire county, the bill stipulates. A new election would have to take place, whose date would be decided by the secretary of state themselves, creating the potential for a delay in representation for residents in the county. This would likely cut into voter turnout for the new election date and potentially affect results of statewide elections, skewing results toward Republicans.
The secretary of state would not have to prove that voting issues occurred to invalidate results under the bill – only that they had “good cause” to believe such issues did.
The bill appears to be a direct response to the 2022 midterm elections, during which Republicans falsely alleged that ballot shortages in Harris County resulted in election fraud benefiting Democrats. Such claims have never been validated, and voters were granted extra time to cast ballots in the county on Election Day last year to remedy the problem.
The bill passed the state Senate on Tuesday. It now heads to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
On its face, the bill appears to be a direct, partisan attack against Democrats.
“Republicans [are] weaponizing 2020 election lies to rig elections,” political strategist Sawyer Hackett said on Twitter.
“Only Harris County — Texas’ largest Democratic county with 4.7m people — would be affected by this bill. This is fascism,” wrote Voto Latino, a nationwide grassroots organization dedicated to empowering Latinx voters.
Elections lawyer Marc Elias, who frequently represents Democratic candidates and causes in elections disputes, said he may challenge the bill if it becomes law.
“If this is enacted, it will be an unprecedented step toward state-sponsored election subversion. We will review carefully to see if and when a legal challenge is appropriate,” he said.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy